(Above) George Radford (left) holds up a drawing of Dunbar Elementary School, an old segregated school that is now the Bloomfield Missionary Baptist Church, while Naomi Birl speaks. (Below) About 125 marched from the Trigg County Schools parking lot to the church in question, a tradition that spans almost 20 decades.

Roughly 125 people marched during Trigg County’s 19th annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom March, and more than 200 people attended the program at Bloomfield Missionary Baptist Church.

When the marchers met Monday morning at the parking lot of the Trigg County School District’s Family Resource Center, Naomi Birl spoke about how she remembered segregation and she talked about the progress that’s been made since then. She talked about those who gave their lives, who boycotted or sat in on segregated institutions.

“We march in remembrance of those that helped us to become an integrated people, and today, here we have, and we stand on this ground,” said Birl. “I tell you, 50 years ago, we would not be standing here to make a speech about integration. But we have the school here that has not always been integrated. How about that? And we march in remembrance of those who helped us, who gave their lives.”

Mirl implored African Americans and people as whole to exercise their rights and register to vote, something African Americans weren’t able to do in much of the country before the Civil Rights Movement.

Mirl also implored students to stay in school, and called the dropout rate for African Americans “criminal.”

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